If thinking about skin cancer then Australia doesn’t seem too surprising for the top spot in melanoma deaths across both sexes for the time period 2013 to 2015, being a sunny country with a strong beach culture and large population of pale skinned folk with genes that are better suited to Northern Europe. However, according to research presented on Sunday at the 2018 NCRI Cancer Conference in Glasgow , the #2 spot is more unexpected – Slovenia.
Related: Food, Alcohol, Sex, Marriage, Divorce & Death: Recent Statistics on Slovenia
The study, which examined cancer deaths in 33 developed countries in Europe, North America and Australasia, since they had the most reliable data, found that in Australia 5.72 male deaths were reported for every 100,000 men from 2013 to 2015, compared to 2.53 female deaths for every 100,000 women. In Slovenia the death rate among men was 3.86 per 100,000, while for women it was 2.58. The lowest death rates for melanoma were found in Japan, at 0.24 for men and 0.18 for women.
The report, published by the UK National Cancer Research Institute, can be read in full here (PDF), while the figures for all the countries included are summarized below. One notable finding about the data – more men die of skin cancer than women.
Data: UK National Cancer Research Institute
